


This Means War

by youcrashstanding



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Avengers Assembled, Gen, I have no idea what I'm doing., Ridiculous, slight crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-09
Updated: 2012-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-07 08:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcrashstanding/pseuds/youcrashstanding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint decides it's time to teach Thor time-honored bonding practices to help him fit in with his new Midgardian teammates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Means War

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first finished Avengers fanfic, and my first fanfic in a long damn time. It came to me whilst I was at work. Here goes. You like? Leave some kudos or feedback. As a die hard Slytherin my ego craves a good, hard stroke.

Like most bad ideas in the Avengers mansion, this one started with Clint Barton. 

In a rare moment of sobriety and teamwork, Tony Stark had blown through the doors of the gym room at dawn, wired from coffee and wearing clothes that probably cost more money than was logical for something you were just going to sweat in.

He barely gave Clint or Thor a second glance as he hopped on a treadmill, muttering to himself before engaging in a leisurely jog.

“It does not seem a sporting game,” Thor remarked, frowning, his whisper hardly a whisper at all; inside voice was not a term that Thor embraced or even really understands. “To truly take a man unawares in such a way.”

“That’s the point,” Clint replies, “That’s what makes it funny, Thor. Tony just made this so much easier. Watch. This is important Earth shit.” He slinks away from Thor then, and crosses the room, winding around the equipment and creeping on an oblivious Tony. Pausing only to give Thor one of the most unhinged looks he’s ever seen from his fellow Avenger, Clint Barton, quite possibly the world’s best marksman, uses his amazing ability to send the wet tip of a gym towel flying through the air with all the speed and grace of one of his arrows; it strikes Tony in the back with such precision and force that it sounds like a whip crack, and Tony lurches forward, arms out, flailing like a drunken bird, and the air rings with,

“JESUS FUCKING GOD!”

And Tony’s no longer on the treadmill, and is instead in a heap on the floor a few feet from the still spinning machine. He rolls his eyes up to a howling Hawkeye, who still has the wet towel clutched in his hands.

“OH MY GOD. STARK. Your fucking FACE….”

Thor’s laughter is probably loud enough to wake the remaining members of the household, but Tony pays him no mind; he’s too far away.

Instead he lunges forward and snags the towel from Clint, and pops him hard in the wrist. “You FUCKER. You fucking PRICK.” He hits him again and Clint staggers back, still laughing, and darts back towards Thor, only to find himself smacked squarely in the temple by *another* towel.

Thor beams at him like the world’s happiest puppy, idly twirling the towel Clint had stupidly given to him when he’d been explaining the game.

There’s a cackle from Tony, who is running full speed at at Clint now. “I will rain down all kinds of biblical FURY upon your house, Barton,” Tony’s saying, and Clint ducks to avoid another swipe. 

Tony hits Thor instead, because he’s a big fucking target, and Thor yelps and hits Tony in retaliation.  
Clint ducks into the showers and grabs another towel, coming out of the door with a battle cry and swinging at both of them. The air is filled with manly (and rather unmanly, in Tony’s case) grunts and the pop and crack of cloth weaponry, and the fight continues back and forth between weight benches, the treadmill that’s *still* running, and into the shower room.

None of them notice Steve or the disapproving, fatherly glare on his face. 

“Guys! Hey. GUYS! Come on! What are you do…”

Three towels strike Steve simultaneously, and he yelps, swatting at his attackers and wishing he’d brought his shield with him.

“WOULD YOU QUIT IT?” he yells, and Tony pops him in the ass, cackling like a psychopath.

“I do not understand!” Thor shouts, ducking a blow from Clint, “When is this game finished? What is our objective? Do we continue to strike until all are involved?”

“Basically, yes,” Clint replies, yelping when Tony catches him in the ear. “FUCK! My EAR! You dick!”

Steve is briefly used as a human shield after Tony pops Thor in the thigh and the god gives and angry shout and takes off after the much smaller man. Clint races past, giving the Captain one final pop to the ass before chasing after Tony and Thor, who seem to be headed upstairs in a grudge match full of swearing and more girlish screams from Tony when Thor manages a hit to the back of Tony’s knee, sending him sprawling through the hallway and into the kitchen.

Clint leaps onto the island in the center of the kitchen, just as Natasha is walking around the corner with a cup of yogurt.

It ends up splattered across her chest and face, and before Clint can hop off of the island, Natasha’s grabbing a dish towel and Clint gets a faceful of floral print.

Thor howls with laughter, swinging his towel like Mjolnir. “I enjoy this game! It is a great test of stamina, is it not?”

Tony slaps him in the ribs and makes to go for Clint, who is still moaning about Natasha’s retaliation.

The second blow leaves clint with a his towel waving in the air, groaning about surrender and a possibly broken nose, so Tony levels his towel at Natasha.

She offers a chilly smile and cocks her head to one side. She should look ridiculous, spattered in dairy products and holding a floral dish towel like a dangerous weapon, but the look she gives Stark makes him lower his towel. 

“Let her pass!” Thor cries, laughing, “Our lady Natasha appears ready to do great damage unto you, Tony Stark! She felled our compatriot in a single blow!”

“I will slap your testicles out of your pants and into the wall,” Natasha says sweetly, offering a feral snarl of a smile, and Tony only nods, and lets her walk by. She drops the towel on Clint’s face as she leaves, and moments later it’s picked up by Thor.

“This towel has great value as a weapon,” he remarks, entirely serious, and tries it himself against the limp form of Clint, who whines in protest and swats blindly at the God of Thunder. 

“I GIVE UP, FOR CHRISTS SAKES!” 

“Excellent! A winner shall soon be had!” 

Thor goes in for a final blow against Tony.

It’s unfortunate, really, because Tony is in the doorway when Thor swings, and Tony ducks, trying to wind his towel and return the attack, but he doesn’t get the chance.

Thor’s blow misses its intended target, and instead knocks the coffee cup out of Bruce’s hand as the scientist is entering the room. Coffee soaks his terry cloth robe and drips down onto his slippers. He closes his eyes and gets very, very still.

“Oh holy shit,” Tony breathes, eyes widening. “Of all of the bad ideas you have ever had, Thor Odinson, that was the worst.”

“This is going to be the stupidest way anyone has ever died, ever,” Clint croaks from the kitchen island. “Ever.”

Natasha, hearing the crack, the crash, and putting two and two together with the fact that she’d passed Bruce in the hallway, calmly closes her door, opens her window, and climbs out of it. 

Moments later, Tony, Clint, and Thor are left peeking through a Hulk-sized hole in the front wall of the mansion (a hole that is also in every wall separating the kitchen from the front of the building, and a hole that explains the piles of broken furniture, the shattered flat screen tv, and about ten light fixtures lying like distraught electronic casualties across the floor), watching a bare-assed green monster run flailing through the streets, a floral towel clutched in one huge hand.

 

“HULK HATE TOWEL SLAPS GAME!”

“I absolutely refuse to be the party responsible for explaining this to Director Fury,” Jarvis says, and there is an odd click as the AI goes into standby, giving them elevator music that contrasts nicely with Steve’s shouting about lack of responsibility.

**Author's Note:**

> I've set sail on the good ship SS FrostIron. I will be continuing this series at some point, I think, but for the moment I'm working on a slash fic. Wee.


End file.
